This invention relates to a method for determining the presence, maintenance and/or absence of automobile insurance on registered vehicles.
Drivers lacking insurance will cause the financial burden of a vehicle accident to fall either on the other driver or the driver's insurance company. These accident costs will then be passed onto all drivers in the form of increased premiums for uninsured motorist coverage.
States have attempted to address this insurance problem by requiring the motorists at the time of paying for their vehicle license plates/tags to provide proof of vehicle insurance for the associated vehicles. However, once the license plate is purchased there is no assurance that the motorist will not subsequently terminate the insurance on that vehicle but continue to operate the registered vehicle in the State with no proper insurance. There is no system in place allowing the State to timely ascertain if such an event occurs. Thus, it is desired to have a system which efficiently monitors the acquisition and maintenance of insurance during ownership and/or operation of the State-licensed vehicle.
In response thereto a system has been invented effectively implemented by computer software and hardware, which monitors the presence and/or absence of vehicle insurance on State registered vehicles. The system utilizes first input data from the public sector, i.e. the State, and second input data from the private sector, i.e. insurance companies. This data is formatted into records and stored in separate databases so as to provide vehicle and insurance data records associated with the registered vehicles and the vehicle insurance thereon.
A State vehicle database comprising records of preselected vehicle and individual information is provided by the State in a predetermined data field format. A second insurance database, as provided by the insurance companies, comprises records identifying individual information as well as the insurance for particular vehicles. Each insurance record preferably contains variable data fields corresponding to the data fields in the vehicle record database. Selectable data fields of the records of each database are compared in an attempt to match the selected data fields in each record of the State vehicle database to selected data fields in each insurance record in the insurance database. A similar reverse comparison is made to match selected data fields in each insurance record to the vehicle records in the State database. If no match is found the information in either the vehicle or insurance records is moved to an exceptions database for further comparison. Records in the exceptions database are flagged to indicate no comparable insurance record has been found. These records are further compared on a subsequent weekly basis to allow for time delays in the update of records in the insurance database. If no match is found for the State vehicle record in the insurance database after a predetermined time period, such as four weeks, the vehicle record is finally flagged as having no insurance for subsequent follow-up by an appropriate government agency. The system also allows further comparisons to be made between the variable data fields in the two database records to ascertain the accuracy of other vehicle and/or insured information.
It is therefor a general object of this invention to provide a system for determining the presence or absence of insurance on State registered vehicles.
Another object of this invention is to provide a system, as aforesaid, which utilizes databases comprised of State provided vehicle records and insurance company records for said insurance determination.
A further object of this invention is to provide a system, as aforesaid, which allows for preselected data to be compared between the State and insurance record databases in a manner to ascertain the accuracy of the information in the databases.
Still a further object of this invention is to provide a system, as aforesaid, which compensates for delay in the recordation of records in the insurance database.
A further particular object of this invention is to provide a system, as aforesaid, which enables the user to identify the presence of data information errors made in the creation of vehicle and/or insurance records.
Other objects and advantages of this invention will become apparent from the following description taken in connection with the accompanying drawings, wherein is set forth by way of illustration and example, an embodiment of this invention.